A New Audience and Post-Debate Strategy

Rather than trying to appeal to on the fence voters or rally their own supporters, it seemed that many of Hillary Clinton's attacks where focused mostly on trying to win more superdelegates. In a race to the end, where so much is decided by these mysterious superdelegates, it is not surprising that Hillary had particular interest in wooing them. She kept trying to put Obama on the defensive and show the flaws in his electability. It didn't seem to do her any good however, as Obama announced even more superdelegates this week. Personally, I'm tired of everyone harping on gaffes such as shootings in Bosnia and bitter comments. I would rather hear more about their strengths and why they would make a good president, not why their opponent would not. I need something other than offhand comments to determine which one is actually a better choice.

Another interesting aspect of this debate is that rather than doing clean-up on their own comments, the new post-debate strategy seems to be to attack the moderators. The public criticized the moderaters for not getting into substantive issues early enough. Obama chimed in on this note when he was in Raleigh, saying “We set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people." While I agree that I tired of the trivial issues, it seems very easy for the candidates to have avoided those big questions and then pretend like they didn't actually want to avoid the big questions. We should have gotten to big issues first, but do not criticize the moderators for that. Answer the big questions now.

National Identity and Whims

Roger Cohen has declared that Asia is the new world power. 81% of Americans feel that this country is headed in the wrong direction. The challenge that this set of presidential candidates faces is not defining national identity in patriotic terms that our country can unite under, but rather forming an identity that the international community can get behind.

Right or wrong, America has been the dominant power in international arenas. Our economic, military and political strength has consistently placed us as the leader, that many countries have gotten behind and looked to for help in any number of situations. This perception has changed gradually in the last couple of years however. With an unpopular war and a demeaned president, the international community sees Americans laughing at their own state of affairs and is quick to join in the ridicule. But at what point did anything substantive change in the way American operated? Is a war in and of itself enough to deplete a country like America to the point where it is only a punch line? Or is it that public perceptions have built upon each other until it appears to be this way?

It is clear to me now that we need a change. This is not because I disagree with every policy that has been enacted in the last four years or that I disagree with the war or president entirely. I believe we need change simply because people perceive we need change. While I still do not agree with some of the policies that "change" would bring about, I have to respect the national and international thirst for it. Like someone had mentioned in class, what kind of difference in direction would having another old white man signal? Barack's appeal to me then, is not his policies or political competency, but simply the fact that he is new, young, fresh body and a blatant change in direction and identity for the US.

Although I changed my major after taking Econ 10 and I do not pretend to be an economist of any sort, it seems to me that a significant portion of our economic problems are identity related as well. It would not surprise me to see a jump in the economy after November if Barack is elected, simply because people think things will be better and thus have more confidence in their economy. I do not believe that the U.S. is on a downward unstoppable spiral to being uprooted as a world power. I do believe that we flush ourselves down the toilet. Our negative national identity is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Americans could start looking at their country with faith and confidence again, the international community would easily follow suit and America would be right back or better than where it started. This has nothing to do with policies, it has everything to do with perception.